It is a truth universally acknowledged that [those who assume] a man in good fortune must be in want of a wife. Bullshit, I say, as I try to purge my mind from the insidious exposure I have had to the online charlatan presenting herself as a paragon of women’s equality, Joy Chen. Her pedantic bi-lingual blog and book Do Not Marry Before Age 30, which has been available worldwide in Chinese, are both an egregious offense to good taste, decency, intelligence, Chinese culture, and women’s equality.

Do not marry until you are successful in your career, happy with yourself, and confident enough to pick the right mate. It’s an overly-broad platitude that can be said for either a man or a woman, and the advice itself isn’t the problem, it’s the reasoning behind it. The whole line about wanting it all has one fundamental flaw: wanting, without giving. Reciprocity is a fundamental foundation for any relationship, but when you have a country with a growingsocial problem with only-children being spoiled by two sets of grandparents and their parents, this is a recipe for entitlement and expectation.

Her argument that marriage should be treated like a business relationship and explores “problems” with potential partners is that it encourages women to look for problems that aren’t there, and in their absence, to create those problems in their minds. It’s almost as if she projected her own situation onto an entire society as one big band-aid to solve the problems of patriarchy by telling women that they should want it all. The real question is why didn’t she or anyone else actually talk to Chinese women and ask them what they themselves want?

Her husband’s testimony is exceptionally dubious. Though there are men who are happy to be the submissive partners with women as the dominant ones in a relationship, it is a flaw in reasoning to project both Joy Chen and her husband’s personalities and preferences as universal for all. They obviously do not know that not every man is going to want to be submissive, or that Joy Chen is only one type of (hideously unattractive) personality.

First, she failed to take into account these traditional Chinese cultural values when writing her book. So maybe it worked out for her to get married at age 38 after achieving incredible success as the Deputy Mayor of LA, but what about Chinese society, which views women past 30 as ‘old maids’ and less desirable? What about Chinese men who see successful, ladder-climbing women as ‘too aggressive’ and also undesirable? What about the fact that Chinese society view too successful women as 剩女 (sheng nu, or ‘leftover women’) because men do not want them? Second, she failed to conduct any of her research in China and did not speak to any Chinese women or men, instead relying on what she calls ‘science’ and ‘psychology’ to form her arguments. Third, she fails to recognize that her case is quite unique and is still not commonplace in the U.S. or China, so for her to generalize based on her experience is flawed. What I found the most interesting were the questions after her talk, where a few Chinese women spoke to these points. “I’m 39 and I’ve followed the exact same path you describe, and yet I can’t find my Mr. Right and my parents and friends only introduce me to men 50 or 60 years old …”

The typical response from shysters is that those who claim to be following their advice but not getting the promised success is that they aren’t following their teachings to the letter. A flaw with this reasoning is, Joy Chen’s got a unique situation, and that’s as absurd as a seven-foot tall basketball player saying that anyone can play, without realizing that not everyone will get to be that height or have those skills. Not everyone can have what Joy Chen has, and she is pushing her situation as the status quo. It’s a bit absurd that her book is aimed at Chinese mainland women–her experience is of a Chinese-American, which is not the same.

The lies and shameless self-promotion are equal only to the asinine and anecdotal “advice” given by fellow scammer, Robert Kiyosaki with Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And no, even Amy Chua, the infamous Tiger Mom does not match the lunacy of Joy Chen’s bizarre vaginal hubris.

To grade her book and blog, I fail her with a D. Why not an F? Because an F at times equates with “fuck” and Joy Chen and her work are definitely not worth a fuck.

Categories:

NOTE: 8Asians.com is a community, and we thank you for being a part of it. While we welcome and appreciate differences in opinion, if you're rude or you're promoting spam, we have a right to edit or delete your comment. Read our comment policy for more information.

If you see a comment that violates the 8Asians.com comment policy, you may flag the comment by mousing over the comment and clicking "FLAG."

Facebook Comments (Beta)

.
I think I am the only person in America that likes Amy Chua.
.
Joy Chen is one in a long line of people saying you can have it all. I was growing up at the time of a lot of the you can have it all movements started and for the life of me, I do not recall a period when someone or some group didn’t have a complaint about their lack of validation or their expectations were not being met.
.
Johnny, go out and have a beer. Who knows, you might run into a normal woman.

Too bad I’m not living in Pittsburgh anymore, otherwise I’d have asked you to join and bought you a pint.

Twistinglily

Where do I start? I fail to see where your anger is coming from. I haven’t heard of Joy Chen until now, so obviously I haven’t read the book, but is it really that bad? Her view might be privileged and her advice might be impractical, but the Chinese patriarchal culture shares that blame.

Her husband’s testimony that you linked does not give obvious sign that he is a submissive. I tried switching the husband/wife role in that testimony and I still fail to see the submissive part.

Lastly, and here is where I am really annoyed. You said her book and blog is an offense to women’s equality. You are the one who offends me for calling her personality hideously unattractive. Is that something you would have written about a man? More insulting than that, you insinuated about her fuck worthiness. I’ll grant that you might not realize that your last sentence could be read that way, but it certainly sounds like you just show your priviledge by reducing a woman to a sexual object.

Taking away the fact my work includes helping oppressed women worldwide and have lived in 11 countries, let’s look solely at what you said:

1) For “hideously unattractive” and “being worth a fuck” (which in this context is clearly NOT about her “fuck worthiness” are things I would have said for man or woman alike, and the word choice is used in response to her self-promotion vernacular. Do you not realize the sexism you accuse me of is what you are doing here by ASSUMING my stance is reducing women to being below men? Sounds like the same argument I had with self-righteous college students who took a few classes in women’s studies or ethnic studies and make the same arguments reading from the same books I’ve read too.

2) A woman like Joy Chen can say things against men and you are too, but when a man simply makes an observation and honest criticism, it’s immediately considered “sexist” but when a woman does it, it’s called empowerment. A double-standard, but do I care? I don’t deal with this anymore since I’ve left America for good.

3) There is no “d” in “privilege” unless you’re trying to be clever with your spelling.

4) I speak four languages and have read (suffered) through her work. We may both be posting in English, but your response shows we do not speak the same language.

LTE2

“Too bad I’m not living in Pittsburgh anymore”
.
What do they know in Pittsburgh?

They know what they like!

If they knew what they liked, they wouldn’t live in Pittsburgh.

– Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

Twistinglily

I didn’t know your background, so yes, I have made assumptions that might be unwarranted.

1. I do not think your post makes it “clearly NOT about here “fuck worthiness”” especially when you were passionately ranting against her. Something is lost in writing. If you didn’t mean that, I’ll take your word for it. I am going to be pedantic here. I think I got caught up in “Joy Chen and her work” and that I would be less likely to jump to conclusion if it has been “Joy Chen’s work” only.

Unfortunately, I realized that I am a bit trigger happy to assume sexism, whether it’s based from experiences or reading too many rants on both sides. On the other hand, awareness has to start somewhere, and sometimes finding the balance between real problem and imaginary is not easy. I think I’d rather be with a trigger happy person than another who is not aware of the problem at all. Your mileage might vary. After all, I found you to be trigger happy in your feeling of superiority. Granted it sounds like you have tons of experiences to back it.

2. Just because a woman criticize something, it doesn’t mean it’s not sexist. I just haven’t read her book and actually have no desire to read it, so I am not going to criticize her. If this is an Amazon review, yours is not helpful.

3. Relax. It’s a misspelling.

4. I have not read the book. I have said so. And the likelihood of communication in this topic is high even if supposedly we both only speak English (which by the way is not my native language).

white guy

why do her kids look MEXICAN?? LOL

Harry

I think both of you are sincere on this topic. You both sound like good, honest people, so it’s a shame to see you two fight each other. The only person that is acting outrageous here is the character that is Joy Chen

Looking at the book’s website, everything just seems so “made up”. The “husband’s testimony” reads like an article written by a woman pretending to be a guy, with really deep emo sentences like “What about me?” ” I wondered if … I wondered if … I wondered if … I saw … I saw … I saw …”. “whether we’re walking along the streets of New York or cleaning up crayons scattered throughout the house. Each new day is packed with adventure.”…how many male friends you know writes like that?

I highly doubt she was the deputy mayor of LA. Given all the Ads and twitter/facebook/linkedin/douban links on her page promoting this book, if she really was the deputy mayor she would have included links or scanned records by now. It would definitely help her sell more books and reach a wider audience, which is clearly what the website is all about.

For a book based around being able to find Mr. Right, there is a distinct lack of description of why this guy is Right. Sure, there’s a lot of description about Joy’s career accomplishments, but there is zero mention of Mr. Right’s credentials. Is he a political figure? A celebrity? Anything remotely special at all? All we really know is that based on the photos, he’s a white guy. That’s IT. For all we know he could be unemployed loser. Or just a regular white guy with zero accomplishments living on his asian wife’s paycheck. Is that really all that counts to be Mr. Right these days? Where are the standards?

JolieMelodie

In response to her being the exception (i.e. the quote), everything that is normalized for women today were once exceptions. Being a doctor, lawyer, etc, getting an education, owning a home, moving abroad on their own, all those things were once done by ‘exceptional’ women. There are big changes in that area in Asia. All those women were different because they thought differently, and that led other women to do so. So for the marriage age pressure (which is unfair, and actually universal, I just think in Asia men are more vocal/less PC about it, but in the west men are also obsessed with a woman’s age), if more women stood up against it things could change (no it wont be easy, it will take decades, but its not impossible). Now thats just my take on making the impossible possible. That said, I dont know the content of the book (and hope it’s not an anti-man one), and I dont know this woman enough (was her family rich, upper-middle class, middle or poor, did she already have an advantage or not?). But I do know someone close from a very poor background who literally made it, and it is no accident, this guy doesnt have somethings others dont, he just doesnt think like the masses.

Thank you for your clarifications and my apologies for responding in a “trigger-happy” manner. I do agree with you that I would rather be around someone who can read through, think, and engage in dialogue than someone who does none of those and simply dismisses things. So for your contribution to this dialogue, I thank you and praise you for speaking up. My opinion and description here is meant to carry a very Charles Bukowski-like tone (hence the last sentence which is a quote from the book Ham on Rye) as a way of responding to her way of dismissing men as the archetypal “Other” in response to treating women as the Other–which is basically treating men badly for historically treating men badly, and that kind of tit-for-tat approach is never successful. In any case, it’s commendable you will speak up and out for what you read and remain open to clarifications, and as always, I see dialogues and disagreements as things to embrace in order to grow and expand my own perspective, which is precisely why I travel frequently to get outside of familiarity and comfort.

To Harry: The closest I found about her being mayor of Los Angeles was something about Diamond Bar. But that’s the thing with books like this: fluff, and it’s why drinking the Kool-Aid from buying and believing this is only benefiting the authors/shysters like Joy Chen or Robert Kiyosaki. As an old colleague once said about his “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” book and its focus on self-promotion and why he can and should be a millionaire, advising people on how to do it too without actually telling them anything: “If I wanted to hear that, I’d just go listen to a homeless man tell me what to do with my money in exchange for giving him a fiver.”

Twistinglily

Thank you for your understanding. That really was not my best moment. I should have asked for clarifications instated of accusing you. I am sorry.

I am now somewhat curious to read the book, but between language barrier and it’s not my type of book, I think I’ll check out Charles Bukowski instead.

And likewise I should have asked for clarifications, but I’m glad both of us remained open, and I do give my apologies again to show it’s appreciated from your end too. For having a clear mind and readiness to speak up as well, I like cut of your jib and encourage you to do more of the same because it gives more depth where it’s needed.

Anyway, on the subject of books, I’ll throw out a few titles I recommend you and others should read now that Bukowski’s name has been put out:

Ham On Rye – Charles Bukowski’s coming-of-age novel in the Depression, with a very strong beatnik influence even if he was never part of the regular circle of the beats, about a guy trying to define his life by being the tough guy and trying to have sex to prove his self-worth (people have been the same for centuries);

The Richest Man in Babylon, by George S. Clason – The only real book anyone should read on finances rather than Rich Dad, Poor Dad because it actually gives real advice;

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole – The whole story is driven by an argument between its male protagonist and his female, superior intellectual rival through letter correspondence and his subsequent constantly failed attempts to prove he’s better than her, and quite possibly one of the greatest books in the English language;

The Rum Diary, by Hunter S. Thompson – Skip Johnny Depp’s film and read this, it’s Hemingway with a shot of rum and a touch of youthful fear about getting old while taking risks and seizing the day to be the one he wants (and finding out there’s more risk than reward);

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi – Believe it or not, in the 23rd century after climate change, complete draining of oil, and economic collapse, people are still acting in the same self-serving way, especially as expats in Thailand–you’ll be surprised a couple of the main American expats in high corporate positions are Asian American women (which are mentioned a bit nonchalantly though).

And I hope it does change, though not in a “let’s step on men instead” kind of way, but rather in a way where both guys and girls give each other double high fives for doing whatever they want, in and out of a relationship and having respect and support for one another. Yeah definitely people who can be exceptions, but the point about the seven-foot basketball player and Joy Chen is that she doesn’t realize her own situation is what allowed her to seize her moment, as talent is universal, but opportunity is not. Opportunity, as I’ve seen, is the difference between living a few meters closer to the demarcation line/district boundaries and being part of a community that receives benefits and assistance from one NGO that the other community does not due to government restrictions, and finding ways to indirectly benefit by that proximity.

iko: STFU mikey STORMloq, the same garbage that is found in STOMRfront. Aren't you yourself doing the same "...making subjective statements about your own ethnicity, just... – What Do White Supremacists Think of Asians?